The formidable British Library has set out to accomplish a formidable task. For centuries, everything in England has been done for centuries, the library has kept a copy of every book, pamphlet, magazine and newspaper published in Britain. As of last week, it will attempt to record every British website, e-book, online newsletter and blog to “preserve the digital memory of this nation.”
The library has stated that this task must be done now because so much material, that was generated by computers, smart phones, etc., has disappeared into a digital black hole. The Library has tried to archive the Web for years. Until recently, it had to get permission from website owners before they could use material from these sources. A law passed in 2003 changed that condition. However, it has taken this long to get the library technologically ready to access all sites with the suffix .uk.
An automated Web harvester will scan and record “4.8 million sites, a total of 1 billion Web pages.” Most of the sites will be captured once a year; some will be harvested as often as once a day. The British library has said that it hopes to make available the content they collect by the end of this year.
Our Library of Congress preserves American e-books and e-journals, etc. but has not as yet saved all websites.